Waterloo Bridge

{{Infobox UK legislation

| short_title = Strand Bridge Act 1809

| type = Act

| parliament = Parliament of the United Kingdom

| long_title = An Act for building a Bridge over the River Thames from the Precinct of the Savoy, or near thereunto, in the County of Middlesex, to the opposite Shore, and for making, convenient Roads and Avenues to communicate therewith, in the County of Surrey.

| year = 1809

| citation = 49 Geo. 3. c. cxci

| introduced_commons =

| introduced_lords =

| territorial_extent =

| royal_assent = 20 June 1809

| commencement =

| expiry_date =

| repeal_date =

| amends =

| replaces =

| amendments = Strand Bridge Act 1813

| repealing_legislation = {{ubli|Local Law (Greater London Council and Inner London Boroughs) Order 1965 (SI 1965/540)}}

| related_legislation =

| status = repealed

| legislation_history =

| theyworkforyou =

| millbankhansard =

| original_text = https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Geo3/49/191/pdfs/ukla_18090191_en.pdf

| revised_text =

| use_new_UK-LEG =

| UK-LEG_title =

| collapsed = yes

}}

{{Infobox UK legislation

| short_title = Strand Bridge Act 1813

| type = Act

| parliament = Parliament of the United Kingdom

| long_title = An Act for altering, enlarging, and extending the Powers of an Act of His present Majesty, for building a Bridge over the River Thames, at the Precinct of the Savoy, or near thereunto; and making Roads and Avenues to communicate therewith, in the Counties of Middlesex and Surrey.

| year = 1813

| citation = 53 Geo. 3. c. clxxxiv

| introduced_commons =

| introduced_lords =

| territorial_extent =

| royal_assent = 2 July 1813

| commencement =

| expiry_date =

| repeal_date =

| amends = Strand Bridge Act 1809

| replaces =

| amendments =

| repealing_legislation = {{ubli|Local Law (Greater London Council and Inner London Boroughs) Order 1965 (SI 1965/540)}}

| related_legislation =

| status = repealed

| legislation_history =

| theyworkforyou =

| millbankhansard =

| original_text = https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Geo3/53/184/pdfs/ukla_18130184_en.pdf

| revised_text =

| use_new_UK-LEG =

| UK-LEG_title =

| collapsed = yes

}}

File:Strand Bridge 1809.jpg

File:Waterloo Bridge 1817.jpg

File:John Constable 001.jpg, John Constable, {{circa|1831–32}}]]

File:Waterloo Bridge, about 1925 01.jpg

The first bridge on the site was designed in 1809–10 by John Rennie for the Company of Proprietors of The Strand Bridge (the Strand Bridge Company). The Strand Bridge Company built the bridge privately, in return for charging tolls to cross it.

Originally named 'the Strand Bridge', following the victory of the Battle of Waterloo, the bridge was renamed in 1816 (before its opening) to 'the Waterloo Bridge'. The bridge company was at the same time renamed 'The Company of Proprietors of The Waterloo Bridge'. It opened in 1817 as a toll bridge.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

The granite bridge{{efn|The granite came from quarries at Mabe in Cornwall{{cite book |last=Mee |first=Arthur |date=1937 |title=Cornwall |location=London |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |page=132}}}} had nine arches, each of {{convert|120|ft|m|1}} span, separated by double Doric stone columns, and was {{convert|2456|ft|m|1}} long, including approaches–{{convert|1240|ft|m|1}} between abutments–and {{convert|42|ft|m|1}} wide between the parapets.

During the 1840s the bridge gained a reputation as a popular place for suicide attempts. In 1841, the American daredevil Samuel Gilbert Scott was killed while performing an act in which he hung by a rope from a scaffold on the bridge.Jay, Ricky (1987) Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers: Stone Eaters, Mind Readers, Poison Resisters, Daredevils, Singing Mice, etc., etc, etc., etc.. New York: Villard Books, p. 150. {{ISBN|0-394-53750-5}} In 1844 Thomas Hood wrote the poem "The Bridge of Sighs", which concerns the suicide of a prostitute there.Brewer, Ebenezer (1970) Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell, p. 152.

The bridge was depicted by the French Impressionist Claude Monet in his series of 41 works from 1900 to 1904, and by the English Romantic John Constable, whose painting depicting its opening is displayed at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire.{{cite web |last1=Sherwood |first1=Harriet |title=Constable painting of Waterloo Bridge 'transformed' by conservation work |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/29/john-constable-painting-waterloo-bridge-conservation-national-trust |website=The Guardian |access-date=29 April 2022 |language=en |date=29 April 2022}}

The bridge was nationalised in 1878 and placed under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which removed the toll from it.

Michael Faraday tried in 1832 to measure the potential difference{{cite web |author=David P. Stern |url=http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/NSTA1C.htm |title=Teaching about the Earth's Magnetism in Earth Sciences-Part 3 |website=Phy6.org |date=18 November 2000 |location=Baltimore Meeting of the National Science Teacher Association |access-date=15 July 2017 |archive-date=24 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181224015456/http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/NSTA1C.htm |url-status=live }} between each side of the bridge caused by the ebbing salt water flowing through the Earth's magnetic fieldFaraday, Michael, Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. 1, London, 1839, p. 55. using magnetohydrodynamics.

Serious problems were found in Rennie's bridge piers from 1884 onward, after scour from the river flow (which had increased following the demolition of Old London Bridge) damaged their foundations. By the 1920s the problems had increased, and settlement at pier five necessitated the closure of the whole bridge while some heavy superstructure was removed and temporary reinforcements were put in place.{{cite book |last=Hopkins |first=Henry |title=A Span of Bridges |publisher=David & Charles |location=Newton Abbot, England |year=1970 |pages=257–260}}

In 1925, a temporary steel framework was built on top of the existing bridge and then placed next to it for the use of southbound vehicles (the postcard image shows this, and the settlement especially to the left of the fifth pier).{{NHLE|desc=Waterloo Bridge|num=1275000|access-date=25 February 2017}}

File:Underside Waterloo Bridge.jpg, quoted in {{harvp|Hopkins|1970}}]]

In the 1930s, London County Council decided to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new structure designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The engineers were Ernest Buckton and John Cuerel of Rendel Palmer & Tritton. The project was placed on hold due to the Second World War.

Scott, by his own admission, was no engineer, and his design, with reinforced concrete beams (illustrated) under the footways, leaving the road to be supported by transverse slabs, was difficult to implement. The pairs of spans on each side of the river were supported by beams continuous over their piers, and these were cantilevered out at their ends to support the centre span and the short approach slabs at the banks. The beams were shaped "to look as much like arches as ... beams can". They are clad in Portland stone, which is cleaned by rain.{{cite book |last=Sutcliffe |first=Anthony |title=London: An Architectural History |url=https://archive.org/details/londonarchitectu0000sutc |url-access=registration |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, CT |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/londonarchitectu0000sutc/page/212 212]}} To guard against the possibility of further subsidence from scour, each pier was given a number of jacks that can be used to level the structure.

Construction of the new bridge began in 1937 and it was partially opened on Tuesday 11 March 1942 and "officially opened" in September 1942.{{cite AV media |title=Life in the War |publisher=BBC}} However, it was not fully completed until 1945.{{cite web |url=http://thames.me.uk/s00110.htm |title=Waterloo Bridge |website=Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide |first=John |last=Eade |access-date=7 April 2018 |archive-date=11 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511105003/http://thames.me.uk/s00110.htm |url-status=live }} It is the only Thames bridge to have been damaged by German bombers during the Second World War.

The building contractor was Peter Lind & Company. At the outbreak of war, despite an immediate order being issued by the Ministry of Transport, that the bridge construction was of national importance, the supply of male labour to execute the heavy works became acute. From the start of the war through to the bridge completion, women became the preponderant members of the construction workforce. This resulted in the project being referred to for many years as "The Ladies' Bridge".{{cite web |url=http://www.peterlind.co.uk/ladies_bridge.htm |title=The Ladies Bridge |last=Staff writer |publisher=Peter Lind & Company Limited |access-date=7 May 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121020816/http://www.peterlind.co.uk/ladies_bridge.htm |archive-date=21 November 2008 |df=dmy-all}}{{cite web |url=http://www.theladiesbridge.co.uk/extract.html |author=Karen Livesey |access-date=24 March 2015 |title=The Ladies Bridge |website=theladiesbridge.co.uk |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200125/http://www.theladiesbridge.co.uk/extract.html |archive-date=2 April 2015 |df=dmy-all}} Lind used elm wood from the old bridge for the dining room floor of Hamstone House, his house that he commissioned and built in 1938 at St George's Hill in Surrey.{{cite book |author=Malcolm Airs |title=The Twentieth Century Great House |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f5kwAQAAIAAJ |year=2002 |publisher=Department for Continuing Education, Oxford University |isbn=978-0-903736-31-2 |page=72}}

Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge on 7 September 1978 by agents of the Bulgarian secret police, the Committee for State Security, possibly assisted by the Soviet security agency, the KGB. He was killed with a poisoned pellet possibly fired from an umbrella.{{cite web |url=http://www.murdermap.co.uk/pages/cases/case.asp?CID=490612156 |title=Cold War Assassination: The Umbrella Murder of Georgi Markov|website=www.murdermap.co.uk |access-date=7 April 2018}}

Granite stones from the original bridge were subsequently "presented to various parts of the British world to further historic links in the British Commonwealth of Nations". Two of these stones are in Canberra, the capital city of Australia, sited between the parallel spans of the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, one of two major crossings of Lake Burley Griffin in the heart of the city. Stones from the bridge were also used to build a monument in Wellington, New Zealand, to Paddy the Wanderer, a dog that roamed the wharves from 1928 to 1939 and was befriended by seamen, watersiders, Harbour Board workers and taxi drivers. The monument, built in 1945, is on Queens Wharf, opposite the Wellington Museum. It includes a bronze likeness of Paddy, a drinking fountain, and drinking bowls below for dogs.{{cite book |last=Haworth |first=Dianne |title=Paddy the Wanderer |publisher=HarperCollins |location=Auckland, New Zealand |year=2007 |pages=158–159}}{{cite news |url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/2700071/Remembering-Paddy-the-Wanderer |title=Remembering Paddy the Wanderer: Tales of a Unique Dog |last=Moor |first=Christopher |date=30 July 2009 |work=The Wellingtonian |access-date=13 June 2013}}

Another piece of the stone is situated under the sundial in the Wellington Boat Harbour Park, next to Clyde Quay Marina, an area of historical significance in Wellington Harbour.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}} Several stone balusters from the demolished bridge were sent in the late 1930s by the author Dornford Yates to be used in his French home 'Cockade', but the Fall of France in 1940 interrupted this project. They were shipped after the war to his new house in Umtali, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe).

Recovered timbers from the bridge were used for shelves and wall panels in the library at Anglesey Abbey.

File:Waterloo Bridge by Charles Deane, 1821.JPG by Charles Deane, 1821]]

The south end of the bridge is in the area known as the South Bank, which includes the Royal Festival Hall, London Waterloo, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Royal National Theatre, as well as the BFI Southbank, which is directly beneath the bridge.

The north end of the bridge passes above the Victoria Embankment where the road joins the Strand and Aldwych alongside Somerset House. This end housed the southern portal of the Kingsway Tramway Subway until the late 1950s.

The entire bridge was given Grade II* listed structure protection in 1981.

The nearest London Underground station is Temple, the nearest National Rail station is London Waterloo.

{{refimprove section|date=April 2017}}

• Robert E. Sherwood's play Waterloo Bridge (1930), the story of a soldier who falls in love and marries a woman he meets on the bridge in an air raid during the First World War, was made into films released in 1931, 1940 and 1956. The second of these film versions starred Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor.
• "After the Lunch", a poem by Wendy Cope about two lovers parting on Waterloo Bridge, now forms the lyric of the song "Waterloo Bridge" by Jools Holland and Louise Marshall.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vVKDCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA98|title=A/AS Level English Literature A for AQA Student Book|first1=Russell|last1=Carey|first2=Anne|last2=Fairhall|first3=Tom|last3=Rank|date=12 November 2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107467927 |via=Google Books}}{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ_M-ZY9cEQ | title=Waterloo Bridge | website=YouTube }}
• The bridge features in the film A Window in London (1940). The hero, played by Michael Redgrave, is a crane driver who is working on the construction of the bridge. Images can be seen of the incomplete rebuilding work in progress.
• The bridge features in scenes at the beginning and end of the film Alfie (1966), starring Michael Caine. In the final scene of the film the title character is seen crossing the bridge followed by a stray dog.{{cite book |date=11 May 2012 |author=Neil Mitchell |isbn=978-1841504841 |title=World Film Locations: London |publisher=Intellect}}
• The song "Waterloo Sunset" by the British band The Kinks tells of living in London and watching life from Waterloo Bridge.
• The comedy short "Waterloo Bridge Handicap" (1978) features a fictional daily race by commuters on the Surbiton - Waterloo train to be the first to walk across to the other side of the bridge.{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t5_oHaTE78 | title=Waterloo Bridge Handicap | website=YouTube }}
• A scene in "The Great Game", an episode of the BBC television series Sherlock, takes place beneath the bridge's northern side, where members of Sherlock's network of homeless informants congregate.{{cite web |title=Locations: Waterloo Bridge |url=http://www.sherlockology.com/locations/waterloo-bridge |work=Sherlockology: The Ultimate Guide for Any BBC Sherlock Fan |publisher=sherlockology.com |access-date=2 June 2012 |archive-date=15 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215103042/http://www.sherlockology.com/locations/waterloo-bridge |url-status=dead }}
• The bridge features in the closing scene of the 1996 film Trainspotting.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/articles/trainspotting-filming-locations/ |title=Surprisingly beautiful places that appear in Trainspotting |work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London |date=27 January 2017 |access-date=7 April 2018}}
• The bridge, when still a toll-bridge, and its toll-keeper feature in Dickens's essay 'Down with the Tide' (1853).
• It is featured in the Mario Kart games Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of the London Loop racecourse.{{cite web|url=https://www.mariowiki.com/Tour_London_Loop#London_Loop_2|title=Tour London Loop - Super Mario Wiki|work=Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance|date=6 December 2019|access-date=29 March 2023}}

• List of crossings of the River Thames
• List of bridges in London

{{Panorama|image=File:London's South Bank By Night.jpg|height=200|caption=Looking east from Waterloo Bridge at night. The City of London landmarks are north of the river; the illuminated National Theatre is among the buildings along the South Bank.}}

{{Panorama|image=File:2016-09-13_Waterloo_Bridge_view_west.jpg|height=200|caption=Looking south-west from Waterloo Bridge. The London Eye is on the South Bank while the Palace of Westminster is further up river on the opposite bank.}}

{{Panorama|image=File:Waterloo Bridge Panorama.jpg|height=200|caption=Waterloo Bridge viewed from the Golden Jubilee Bridge}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|2}}

• {{cite book | last=Whitney | first=Charles S. | year=2003 | title=Bridges of the World: Their Design and Construction

| place=Mineola, New York | publisher=Dover Publications | isbn=978-0486429953 | edition=Reprint | url=https://archive.org/details/bridgesofworldth0000whit | access-date=12 January 2025}}

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47032 Survey of London entry]
• {{Structurae|id=20002224|title=Waterloo Bridge (1817)}}
• {{Structurae|id=20002236|title=Waterloo Bridge (1945)}}

{{ThamesCrossings|west=Bakerloo line
|east=Waterloo & City line}}

{{Bridges of Central London}}

{{Metropolitan Board of Works}}{{Authority control}}

{{Coord|51|30|31|N|0|07|01|W|region:GB_type:landmark|display=title}}

Category:Bridges across the River Thames

Category:Bridges completed in 1817

Category:Bridges completed in 1945

Category:Buildings and structures in the City of Westminster

Category:Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth

Category:Rebuilt buildings and structures in the United Kingdom

Category:Grade II* listed buildings in the City of Westminster

Category:Grade II* listed bridges in London

Category:Transport in the London Borough of Lambeth

Category:Transport in the City of Westminster

Category:Former toll bridges in England

Category:Giles Gilbert Scott buildings

Category:Bridges in London